Faded Moonlight
by Biigoh
Summary: When one loses the world, sometimes all that can be done is to move on.
1. Chapter 1 : Faded Moonlight

So I entered a weekly (every saturday) speed-ficcing on the TFF, with a duration of 4 hours to do up a fic.

I did a sailor moon short fic this week. ^_^

Copyrights : Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha  
Title : **Faded Moonlight**  
Theme : **Moving On**

_Sometimes we lose things, like our keys, our wallets or our cell phones. Sometimes we lose big things like friends, our dignities, limbs or sanity. After the dust settles, what can you do? Get revenge maybe, or try and get back what you lost, but what about afterwards?_

You come home from your adventure, and nothing's the same. What can you do?

You've lived a long and happy life, but now your time is come. What can you do?

It's time to move on. It'll be hard, finding a way to fit your life back together, and maybe impossible without a change of scenery. What happened? What do you have to do to move on? What happens next?

This is your challenge. You have four hours. Make it delicious.

Start time 1:00 pm PST  
Post time 2:02 pm PST 

* * *

Some times at night, she dreams and weeps in her sleep.

That was normal, an absolutely normal thing for a normal human to do.

Fantastical dreams. Of love. Justice. Boon friends and companions who stood tall and proud along side her.

Blasphemous dreams. Of wielding magic. Potent artifacts. 'Dusting' inhuman monsters. Against those who ruled the world.

She has learned to keep her silence. Even silly bunnies like her could learn simple things like that. After all, the nail that sticks up is hammered down.

She remembers a time when she fancied herself a princess.

Once, she stepped forth into an unknown and mutable future to save a child who might have been, could have been, would have been her daughter. But now would never be. She had seen the possibilities that existed in potentia, as ephemeral as dew under the moonlight and vanished in the harsh light of reality.

There was a time, when she would have challenged all the universe to protect those she loved and the world they lived in.

And she did.

Those who remembered That Day would have called that fight mythic. Of elemental might sufficient to destroy entire cities essayed against armies countless and faceless monsters without end. Of desperate heroism as warriors in fuku battled impossible odds and won.

Of battle after battle won. Every battle but the last one.

The one in which the Trap had been sprung, it having been set up piece by piece over the span of the war. Every single battle, lost for a purpose.

Cold and cruel in the necessity.

Merciless. As one of her friends once said.

Once, she could remember her friends with crystal clarity. Now, she remembers shades and colors to go with their voices. Not names nor faces.

A 'small' mercy and favor for blind, foolish, valiant opponents, he had said once with laughter in his voice. The great enemy who desired dominion over all.

The ruler of all existence now.

Her Master in name and deed.

Once she could have and would have defeated him. But that was long ago and far away. So far away that the time and reality she lived in could never touch it again.

Not since that day when everything changed.

When her Destiny and Tale shattered against his relentless ascending machinations, as he used her very essence to reweave reality.

Denying possibilities of what might have been, calcifying the future into what he desired, the past of which he dreamt, and the present that he ruled.

But she remembered, she had been at the heart of it all.

What once was, and what is. She remembered them both.

And so, she dreams and weeps in her sleep. For what she once possessed, for the world that never was and never could be.

For Usagi was human.

Far too human.

Not an angel with its wings clipped.

Not an agent of love and justice.

Nor Sailor Moon, a pretty soldier in a sailor fuku.

Nor the reincarnation of the Moon Princess Serenity.

Just an everyday normal human woman.

And it was human to adapt, to change to the environment. To forget. To move on.

But at night, when she sleeps, she dreams of the world that could have been and she weeps for those who would never exist. 

* * *

Author's notes

To quote Wanted...

"_Ah, but it wasn't enough just to beat them, Wesley. We had to strip them of their memories and make sure that even their greatest fans didn't remember them. Such science might seem comical in this new world that we molded for you, but believe me when I say that reality itself can be rewritten if we desire it, boy. Seven-dimensional imps, and alien super-computers are among our ranks, you know. There's really nothing we can't do if we always stand united._"  
- **The Professor, Solomon Seltzer, in Wanted #2**


	2. Chapter 2 : Qui audet adipiscitur

So I entered a weekly (every saturday) speed-ficcing on the TFF, with a duration of 4 hours to do up a fic. This week's contest was delayed by a day.

I did a sailor moon short fic this week. ^_^

Copyrights : Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha  
Title : **Qui audet adipiscitur**  
Theme : **The Gamble**

Sometimes you need to take a chance to get ahead. So you pull out the stops and bet everything you've got on one last roll of the dice. All in, everything on the table, going the distance... you know all of the cliches. If you win this, you've got everything. Lose and it's all over.

Don't underestimate the risk. If you're going all out and lose, you lose everything.

And don't forget, even if you go all in, there's no reason for your opponents to. And even less reason for them to play by the rules.

The challenge is made. So write!

Start time 11:15 pm PST  
Post time 12:20 pm PST

* * *

Once, the moon was beyond my grasp.

Once, I was but a craven fool whose vision lay on the ground before me. Always walking forwards, but with my sight held low by the chains of banal reality.

A child of man, beaten low by norms of society. The nail that rose high was hammered down. Hard.

No more.

Once, I held naught but petty ambitions, dreams and evils. I hated those above, I despised those below. I dreamt of rising higher. Becoming a just another hairless monkey who climbed the tree that he was told to climb by those who bound him.

Once. But that was before IT.

It came to me.

Offers and Pledges of possibilities. Uncertainties of becoming more.

Evolution. Rising above the muck that crawled upon the world.

There would be enemies. Challenges. Yes. Along with Goals.

All It wanted was Everything. And all it offered was a chance.

I would not be the First. Nor the Last.

But if I succeeded in its task. I would be the Both.

And with that power given me, so too was perspective. And so I learned and I studied you, my dear princess. Those who you called friends, enemies, and more importantly, You.

Have you never wondered why?

Yes, why you could not help BUT win? Always winning. Oh, there was always a risk of you not winning. But you never did, always by chance you would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

I found out why. And with that knowledge, I gambled.

I chanced everything with my plot.

I played the fool. An endless army of fodder for you to slaughter.

All while I arranged things. A nudge here, a nip there, and folding of reality. Just so, when you came after me, like you would and did, your very strength would be your undoing.

Your unspeakable strength would break your destiny. Your fate would be shattered by your strike. Did you know that Reality, itself, arranges for you to win.

Always.

You can't help but win. Your destiny is writ large upon the filiments of Heaven, Earth and all of That Which Is. Carved by Silver Queen who ruled the Moon as she fell.

So, for me to win, you had to win. For only you could break your Destiny.

Only you could break the world. Indeed. Break all of reality.

But it shall me who puts it back together.

Shhhh, shhhh, no need to cry, trust me, I'll make it all better. I'll make your agony end soon. I just need you to be strong. Yes, be strong. Brave. Fight me. You have a chance to win. You could still break free of my bindings, my wards.

You just need to keep fighting to the end. As you always do.

Yes, just like that. That's a good girl.

It'll soon be over.

But yes, I gambled that you would do exactly as you always did. To fight the good fight. I took no chances, mind you. I stacked the deck towards my side.

And you could have defeated me. If you had just known why you couldn't lose.

Ah? Your friends? Don't worry... they'll be fine. They'll live. Just like you. And trust me, I'm a man of my word.

And I believe in being benevolent when I can. You will live. Think of it as a small mercy and favor for blind, foolish, valiant opponents.

And now.

Let there be Light.

* * *

Author's notes

_"You let one of them go but that's nothing new. Every now and then a little victim's spared because she smiled, 'cause he's got freckles. 'Cause they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in awhile on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction you happen to be kind."_  
- The Doctor, **Doctor Who episode 165 "Boom Town"**

Yes, a continuation/prequel of 'Faded Moonlight'. The title "Qui audet adipiscitur" means "Fortune Favors the Bold".


End file.
